Israeli authorities on Sunday released the bodies of seven Palestinian who were killed by Israeli forces, some of them more than a month earlier, the Palestinian Authority of Civil Affairs told Ma'an.
Ministry officials said the bodies belonged to Muhammad Zahran from Kafr Addik village near Nablus, Mamoon al-Khatib from Bethlehem, Issam Thawabta from Beit Fajjar town south of Bethlehem, Samir al-Sarisi from Jenin, Muhammad al-Shubaki from Hebron, Issa al-Huroub from Hebron, and Shadi Matariyya from al-Bireh northwest of Ramallah.
Since a wave of unrest swept the occupied Palestinian territory at the beginning of October, Israel has routinely held the bodies of Palestinians it alleges were attempting to attack Israelis when they were killed.
Israel's Public Security Ministry said in mid-October that the bodies of alleged Palestinians attackers would no longer be returned to their families and would instead by buried in "secret."
A spokesperson for the ministry said at the time the decision was made in order to stem protests that frequently accompany the funerals of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces.
However, Israel's withholding of bodies has only further stoked tensions in the occupied Palestinian territory, and Israeli authorities have since returned many of them of them to their families, on what they refer to as a "case-by-case" basis.
